We have a deal on the SlimJuicer 4,500mAh Wireless Charging Case for iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max. It’s a charging case with built-in Qi charging, meaning your iPhone charges from the case wirelessly, and the case can also charge through a Chi charger, or through a Lightning cable. It’s $24.99 through our deal, but coupon code MERRYSAVE15 brings it down to $21.25 at checkout. The deal link goes directly to the iPhone 11 model. There’s a pulldown menu if you want to get one for either pro model, and the coupon code works on all three models.
Apple’s ‘Little America’ Releases January 17, 2020
Little America, an anthology series for Apple TV+ will premiere on January 17, 2020 and Apple has already renewed it for a second season.
Encryption on iOS, Apple's Fan Allergy – TMO Daily Observations 2019-12-12
John Martellaro and Charlotte Henry join host Kelly Guimont to discuss an iOS security kerfuffle, and Apple’s known allergy to computer fans.
Optimize Your iPhone Battery Charging in iOS 13
Your iPhone has an often overlooked setting through which it optimizes charging in order to prevent the battery aging unnecessarily.
Apple Pay Express Transit Comes to New York Penn Station
Apple Pay Express Transit goes live at the New York Penn Station. Just tap your iPhone or Apple Watch to an OMNY card reader.
Apple News to Co-Host Democratic Debates for First Time
Today the DNC announced the hosts of the next four presidential debates. Surprisingly, Apple News is a co-host.
Apple Defends Encryption in Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing
Apple representatives appeared in front of the Senate Judiciary committee on Wednesday. Lawmakers quizzed the firm on encryption, on which Apple defended its position. Ars Technica has a good rundown of what happened.
Vance, for his part, called Apple’s and Google’s introduction of device encryption “the single most important challenge to law enforcement over the last 10 years… Apple and Google upended centuries of American jurisprudence”… Apple Manager of User Privacy Erik Neuenschwander responded that Apple will continue to work with law enforcement, citing the 127,000 requests from law enforcement for assistance Apple’s team—which includes former law enforcement officials—has responded to over the past seven years, in addition to thousands of emergency requests that Apple has responded to usually within 20 minutes. “We’re going to continue to work with law enforcement as we have to find ways through this,” Neuenschwander said. “We have a team of dedicated professionals that is working on a daily basis with law enforcement.” Feinstein interrupted Neuenschwander: “My understanding is that even a court order won’t convince you to open the device.”
Credit Suisse: iPhone Shipments Down Over 35% in China
iPhone shipments in China last month were down 35.4% compared to November last year, according to a new note by Credit Suisse analysts.
Apple Sends, Then Retracts, DMCA Takedown Notices Over iPhone Encryption Key Tweet
Apple issued a DMCA takedown notice to Twitter after someone posted an iPhone encryption key, but then retracted the request.
Apple Partners With Orangetheory on Apple Watch Fitness
Apple has partnered with Orangetheory Fitness, which created a device called OTbeat Link that clips on an Apple Watch band.
How Thermodynamics Help Keep the Mac Pro Cool
The new Mac Pro is a bit of a beast. Computers like that obviously generate a lot of heat. Popular Mechanics spoke to the Apple engineers tasked with keeping such a powerful device cool.
Most high-grade PCs and displays cool things off with big fans or pump-driven water systems. But if you’ve used a Mac in the past decade, near-silent operation is a non-negotiable requirement for Apple laptops. That means Apple engineers have to find creative ways to exploit the laws of thermodynamics. Among those engineers is Chris Ligtenberg, Senior Director of Product Design. His name is on dozens of the company’s patents, but he’s especially interested in how air moves. (He’s also a pilot. “I fly a Beechcraft Turbo Bonanza, B36TC,” he says. Before that, he had a Piper straight-tail Lance, PA32R-300). Ligtenberg’s group built the Pro’s fan system—three axial fans in the front, with a blower in the back. Since most off-the-shelf fans would be too loud, Apple designs them internally.
Twitter Will Turn Your Live Photos Into GIFs
Twitter says that the next time you upload Live Photos from iOS onto its platform, you’ll see an option to turn it into a GIF. It won’t happen automatically, but you’ll see a GIF button in the lower-left corner of the tweet compose window.
Give the gift of GIFs. You can now upload your iOS Live Photos as GIFs anywhere you upload photos on Twitter.
Twitter Announces Changes to Help Combat Hate and Harrassment
Twitter is going to pay five people to work on decentralized standards for social media. They hope it will help combat hate and harassment online. CEO Jack Dorsey made the announcement in a thread on Wednesday. Wired explained what it all means for the future of social networking.
That could mean that, instead of Twitter the company having sole control over Twitter the social network, many other people could run their own versions of Twitter, in the same way that many different companies, nonprofits, and individuals run email services. You can send an email from Gmail to Yahoo, or to a server run by a mom-and-pop email provider. You can even set up your own email server at home. That’s because email is based on open standards that anyone can use. But don’t expect to set up your own Twitter tomorrow. The project is in its earliest stages. Twitter CTO Parag Agrawal is hiring the team, which will be known as “@bluesky.”
PDF Search - AI-Powered Text Search Inside PDF Documents: $8.50
We have a deal on PDF Search, software that enables you to find any information in seconds within thousands of documents using Artificial Intelligence. Instead of checking only what’s in front of you, iPDF Search analyzes all pages separately and makes a relevance check for each of them according to given keywords. It’s $9.99 through our deal, but coupon code MERRYSAVE15 brings the checkout price down to $8.50. Check out the promo video below.
Google’s Project Understood Aims to Help People With Down Syndrome Use Voice Technology
Google started an initiative called Project Understood. It’s partnering with the Canadian Down Syndrome Society to ask people with Down syndrome help train its voice recognition algorithms to understand them better.
“Out of the box, Google’s speech recognizer would not recognize every third word for a person with Down syndrome, and that makes the technology not very usable,” Google engineer Jimmy Tobin said in a video introducing the project. Google is aiming to collect 500 “donations” of voice recordings from people with Down syndrome, and is already more than halfway toward its goal.
A worthy project.
iOS Update PSAs, John's Mac Pro – TMO Daily Observations 2019-12-11
Andrew Orr and John Martellaro join host Kelly Guimont to discuss some new features in the latest iOS update, and John’s Mac Pro.
AT&T Raises Price of DirecTV Again
Despite losing millions of customers the last time it did this, AT&T decided to once again raise the price of DirecTV. Monthly rates will increase by US$8/mo starting on January 19, 2020.
The $8-per-month increase will apply to the DirecTV Premier plan that currently costs $189. A $7 increase will apply to the Ultimate package that costs $135 and to the Xtra package that costs $124; a $5 increase will apply to the Choice plan that costs $110; a $4 increase will apply to the Select package that costs $81 a month and to the Entertainment package that costs $93; and increases of $1 or $3 will apply to basic plans.
Drafts: Popular Note-Taking App Gets Integration Upgrade on Mac
The Mac version of Drafts has been updates to include integration with other apps, as is possible on the iOS version.
Analyst Predicts Six New iPhone Models
Speculation about the 2020 iPhone is growing. In an investors note seen by AppleInsider, Rosenblatt Securities analyst Jun Zhang predicted specs for six different models.
For the “iPhone 12” range, Zhang expects there to be a far wider array of models to choose from than Apple has ever offered before, in part due to the introduction of 5G The analyst’s model predictions include: iPhone 12 4G with a 6.1-inch LCD screen and dual rear cameras, iPhone 12 Pro 4G with a 5.4-inch OLED screen and dual rear cameras, iPhone 12 Pro 5G with a 5.4-inch OLED display and dual rear cameras, iPhone 12 Pro Plus 4G with a 6.1-inch OLED display and a triple rear camera with Time-of-Flight 3D sensing capabilities, iPhone 12 Pro Plus 5G using a 6.1-inch OLED screen, triple camera setup, and ToF features, iPhone 12 Pro Max 5G with a 6.1-inch OLED panel, the triple camera setup, and ToF. To further complicate matters, Zhang also suggests the “iPhone 12” Pro 5G could be offered in variants supporting sub-6GHz only or adding mmWave compatibility.
The Moment Ellen De Generes and Michelle Obama Give iPads to a Class of Schoolchildren
Ellen De Genres and former First Lady Michelle Obama visited Randle Highlands Elementary School in Washington, D.C. There, they handed out an iPad from Apple to every pupil. Furthermore, the teachers got MacBook Airs and the school got new iMacs (via Cult of Mac). A video shows the moment the pupils realized what was happening!
How to Call Your Legislators With a Shortcut
Matthew Cassinelli was part of the team that created Workflow, which Apple acquired and turned into the Shortcuts app. He recently created a shortcut that lets you enter your zip code and automatically call your legislators.
Hello. You can use this tool to immediately call your senator/representative based on your ZIP code. Contact them now.
Apple TV+ Bosses Reflect on Golden Globes Nominations
This week, Apple celebrated Apple TV+ flagship The Morning Show receiving three Golden Globes nominations. Deadline spoke to the company’s heads of world video – Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg about what it all means.
“Honestly we had really mitigated expectations because no streamer has ever received nominations in any significant categories the first year, it took minimum two years before they got traction to get nominations,” Jamie Erlicht, Apple’s head of Worldwide Video, said. “We expected that it would be very hard to do, but we also had to believe in the quality of our shows and that if anyone had a chance to get early awards recognition, Apple TV+ would be one to do it. It’s been validating what we knew, that we had something special here.” Added Apple’s fellow head of Worldwide Video Zack Van Amburg, “After the debut of Apple TV+ just last month, today’s nominations are a true testament to the powerful storytelling that went into The Morning Show, as well as all of our Apple Originals.”
Apple Just Made SMS Two-Factor Authentication More Annoying
iOS 13.3 added an improvement to minimize junk messages you get, but it also made SMS two-factor authentication more annoying.
Safari Now Prevents Tracking Prevention Tracking
In a blog post called “Preventing Tracking Prevention Tracking” WebKit’s John Wilander explained a new Safari capability.